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The formal Luxembourg Garden (Jardin du Luxembourg) presents a 25-hectare green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and provided with large basins of water where children sail model boats. In the southwest corner, there is an orchard of apple and pear trees and the théâtre des marionettes (puppet theatre).
Senate of France
The Senate (French : Sénat) is the upper house of the Parliament of France, presided over by a president. The Senate enjoys less prominence than the lower house, the directly elected National Assembly. Debates in the Senate tend to be less tense and enjoy generally less media coverage.
France's first experience with an upper house was under the Directory from 1795 to 1799, when the Council of Ancients was the upper chamber. There were Senates in both the First and Second Empires (the former being known as the sénat conservateur, the latter as the French Senate), but these were only nominally legislative bodies - technically they were not legislative, but rather advisory bodies on the model of the Roman Senate.
With the Restoration in 1814, a new Chamber of Peers was created, on the model of the British House of Lords. At first it contained hereditary peers, but following the July Revolution of 1830, it became a body to which one was appointed for life. The Second Republic returned to a unicameral system after 1848, but soon after the establishment of the Second French Empire in 1852, a Senate was established as the upper chamber. In the Fourth Republic, the Senate was renamed the Council of the Republic, but its function was largely the same. With the new constitution of the Fifth Republic in 1959, the older name of Senate was restored.
Until September 2004, the Senate had 321 senators, each elected to a nine-year term. On that date, the term was reduced to six years, while the number of senators will progressively increase to 346 in 2010 to reflect changes in the country's demographics. Senators were elected in thirds every three years; this will also change to one-half of their number every three years.
Senators are elected indirectly by approximately 150,000 local elected officials ("grands électeurs"), including regional councilors, department councilors, mayors, city councilors and their delegates in large towns, and deputies of the National Assembly. This system introduces a bias in the composition of the Senate, which favors rural areas. As a consequence, while the political majority changes frequently in the National Assembly, the Senate has remained politically conservative since the foundation of the Fifth Republic, and it is expected that it will remain so in the forthcoming years.
Twelve senators are elected to represent French citizens living outside the Republic.
Following from a tradition started by the first National Assembly during the French Revolution, the "left-wing" parties sit to the left as seen from the president's seat, and the "right-wing" parties sit to the right, and the seating thus indicates the political spectrum as represented in the Senate. |
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Palais Médicis
The palace was built for Marie de Médicis, mother of king Louis XIII of France, just near the site of an old hôtel particulier owned by François, duc de Luxembourg, hence its name (now called Petit Luxembourg, home of the president of French Senate). Marie de Médicis bought the structure and its fairly extensive domain in 1612 and commissioned the new building, which she referred to as her Palais Médecis, in 1615.
Her architect was Salomon de Brosse. Its construction and furnishing formed her major artistic project, though nothing remains today of the interiors as they were created for her, save some architectural fragments reassembled in the Salle du Livre d'Or. The suites of paintings she commissioned, in the subjects of which she expressed her requirements through her agents and advisors, are scattered among museums.
Most famously, a series of twenty-four triumphant canvases were commissioned from Peter Paul Rubens. A series of paintings executed for her Cabinet Doré ("gilded study") was identified by Anthony Blunt in 1967. To the right of the block of the Luxembourg, erected at the same time, was the mass of the Palais du Petit-Luxembourg (see below).
She installed her household in 1625, while work on interiors continued. The apartments to one side were reserved for the Queen and the matching suite on the other for Louis XIII (floor plan). Construction was finished in 1631; the Queen Mother was forced from court the same year, following the "Day of the Dupes". Louis commissioned further decorations for the Palace from Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne.
Palais d'Orléans
In 1642, Marie bequeathed the Luxembourg to her second (and favourite) son, Gaston de France, the king's younger brother and the duc d'Orléans. In 1643 he married Marguerite de Lorraine, daughter of François II de Lorraine. The couple separated some time before the death of Gaston in 1660. At his death, it was his widow who received the Palais d'Orléans. Some time after, it was then given to Gastons eldest and more famous daughter, Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de Montpensier in her own right and the greatest hieress of her time.
Very popular with the Parisian people, she made it her official residence till her death in 1693 at the palais. At her death, it was then given to her half sister by her fathers second marriage; Elisabeth Marguerite d'Orléans, duchesse de Guise et Joyeuse by marriage and duchesse d'Alençon in her own right. In 1694, the duchesse d'Alençon gave it to her cousin, Louis XIV of France. She died 2 years later.
La Régence
The palace remained the property of the Crown of France till the death of Louis XIV; at his death in 1715 aged 76, his nephew Philippe II d'Orléans became the Regent for the young Louis XV of France who was aged 5 at the time. During the period of his regency (1715 - 1723) the court and government were moved away from the Palace of Versailles to Paris. The Régent installed the young Louis XV in the Palais de Tuileries while he lived at his Palais Royal opposite.
The year after he became Régent, he gave the Palais to his eldest and favourite daughter Marie Louise Elisabeth d'Orléans, duchesse de Berry by marriage (she married Charles de France in 1710). It was during this time that the palace developed its reputation for scandal. Marie Louise was the grand daughter of Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan, mistress of Louis XIV and had inherited her want for glamour and drama.
The palace became the stage of lavish parties one of which she served herself on a large plate naked. Her father would frequently join her at the palais and she would often go to her father lavish Palais Royal. It was at the Palais de Luxembourg that she died in 1719 after debaucheries at the age of 24. Her father, much destressed at the death of his favourite, died in 1723 thus ending the regency.
Under Louis XV
After the death of the Régent, the Louis XV was fully recognised as head of state as he had come of age. As a result, the palace again went through another quiet time as it did before the parties of the duchesse de Berry. Some time around 1725, the palace became a secondary home of Louise Elisabeth d'Orléans - the widowed Queen Consort of Spain. She had married her cousin Louis I of Spain in 1722 at the age of 12, was Queen for 9 months in 1724 and widowed at the age of 15 (her husband died of Smallpox). As a result her mother, the proud Dowager duchesse d'Orléans had her recalled to France where she lived till her death in 1742. She died at the palais alone and ignored.
The palace was next inhabited by the older sister of the Dowager Queen of Spain; Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans. She also had a prominent marriage to the Sovereign Duke of Modena and Reggio in a lavish ceremony at the neighbouring Palais de Tuilieries in 1720. The marriage was carried out as Charlotte had started an affair with the duc de Richelieu at the age of 17. After having seven children as Duchess Consort, she asked to return to Paris some time after the birth of her last child Maria Elisabetta of Modena in 1741.
No where to live, she was then given the palais after the death of her younger sister. She lived at the palace when she died in 1761. She was to be the the grandmother of Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon-Penthièvre - another vastly wealthy hieress and mother of Louis-Philippe of France.
The palais became a museum - the forerunner of the Louvre - in 1750, and was open two days a week until 1779.
Under Louis XVI
In 1778 the palace was given to comte de Provence by his brother Louis XVI of France. He would again usher in an era of parties as the duchesse de Berry had done at the first half of the century. During the French Revolution, it was briefly a prison - one of its prisoners was the duchesse d'Orléans, who was the wife of the executed Philippe Égalité. Another was the painter Jacques Louis David. It was then the center of the French Directory and later the first residence of Napoleon Bonaparte, as First Consul of France. It has continued its senatorial role, with brief interruptions, ever since.
Modern Era
In the nineteenth century the palace was extensively remodeled, with a new garden façade by Alphonse de Gisors (1836-1841), and a cycle of paintings (1845-1847) by Eugène Delacroix that was added to the library.
During the German occupation of Paris (1940-1944), Hermann Göring took over the Palais as the headquarters of the Luftwaffe in France, taking for himself a sumptuous suite of rooms to accommodate his visits to the French capital. His subordinate, Luftwaffe Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle, also took an apartment and spent most of the war enjoying the luxurious surroundings. "The Field Marshal's craving for luxury and public display ran a close second to that of his superior, Goering; he was also his match in corpulence," wrote armaments minister Albert Speer after a visit to Sperrle in Paris.
The Palais was a designated "strong point" for German forces defending the city in August 1944, but thanks to the decision of commanding Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz to surrender the city rather than fight, the Palais was only minimally damaged. The building was later used for the peace conference of 1946.
The Petit-Luxembourg
To the west of the Luxembourg, and communicating with it through interior courts, the sixteenth-century original hôtel of François de Luxembourg was rebuilt during the same years, the smaller palace now called the Petit-Luxembourg; it is composed of two main blocks, or corps de logis separated by a courtyard that is entered through a grand convex portal flanked by Tuscan columns. The Petit-Luxembourg has been used since 1958 as the residence of the president of the Sénat.
The Queen Mother passed it to the Cardinal de Richelieu, who occupied it while his own grand palace, the Palais Royal, was constructed in the rue St-Honoré. Once there, he ceded the Petit-Luxembourg to his niece the duchesse d'Aiguillon.
By inheritance it passed to her son Henri-Jules de Bourbon, prince de Condé whose widow Anne, princesse palatine de Bavière, made it the habitual residence of her widowhood, making adjustments to suit her status that included the grand staircase and salon by Germain Boffrand (1709-13 and adding another hôtel for her household, with her kitchens and stables, on the other side of rue Vaugirard; an underground passage linked the two residences.
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_du_Luxembourg
Text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License |
